Traveling with Pets: Airlines With the Most Dog Deaths

July 21, 2010

By SCOTT MAYEROWITZ

When Kendra and Travis Parks moved last month from Hawaii to Seattle, they sent their six-year-old Great Dane Tucker in a custom-made kennel in the cargo hold of a Continental Airlines plane. Unfortunately for Tucker, it wasn?t a smooth trip.

Courtesy Kendra Parks

When Kendra and Travis Parks moved last month from Hawaii to Seattle, they sent their 6-year-old Great Dane Tucker in a custom-made kennel in the cargo hold of a Continental Airlines plane. Unfortunately for Tucker, it wasn't a smooth trip.

When he arrived in Seattle -- after a layover at Continental's Houston hub -- Tucker was covered in vomit, feces, saliva and blood, according to the Parks. He could barely lift his head and didn't respond to any stimuli, the couple said. He was "in such grave condition" that he had to be euthanized a few hours after arriving.

"Our dog was in perfect heath before we left," Kendra Parks told ABC News, adding that their veterinarian checked him out and signed off on the travel a few days before the trip.

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When she picked up Tucker in Seattle, "He looked like they dragged him behind the plane," Parks said.

Continental offered to refund the $900 the couple paid to fly Tucker and the cost of euthanizing and cremating the Great Dane. Continental also offered to fly the couple a new puppy from anywhere in the country.

Parks said she just wants the airline to take responsibility, change its policies and stop treating animals "like luggage."

"This dog saw me through everything," she said. "Every day I cry. It breaks my heart every day not to have my dog with me. I wish we had never flown back. I wish we had never left Honolulu. They will never know what they took from me."

The reporting of animal accidents is by no means perfect. Since May 2005, the airlines have been required report when there is a problem, but they don't release data on number of animals transported each month and the government doesn't keep track.

Presumably, the larger the airline, the more likely is to have incidents of problems transporting pets. But that's not the case.

Delta, the world's largest airline, transports 65.2 million domestic passengers a year and had 43 lost, injured or killed dogs during the DOT survey. Continental, which flies half as many people -- 31.5 million -- had 58 incidents. Then there is US Airways. That airline flies 44 million people a year domestically but only lost, injured or killed three dogs past four-and-a-half years.

Continental said that autopsy results of the 40 dogs that died in flight show that "none of these deaths were transit related." (Another 14 pets were injured and four others lost.)